Short stories to curl up with.

Alex Trebeck And Me On Jeopardy (Or Is It In Jeopardy?)

Just so you know, Alex Trebeck is made out of wood, not plaster of Paris. I think it’s a fancy wood, like something you’d find environmentalists hugging in the rain forest.

It’s something I’ve suspected for sometime now. Especially after he got rid of the mustache. That’s what clinched it for me. (I have a theory about that mustache being some sort of wood fungus and/or moss, but I’m not going to get into that now.)

Then, I went on Jeopardy.

Pure luck, really. Buddy Shummer was supposed to go. He’s the one with all the brains. I know. I’ve seen them sitting in his tool shed, loosely bopping around in jars of preserving juice (or whatever that stuff’s called).

But I was the one who got the call.

Pure luck.

Purely dumb luck.

Buddy didn’t take the news too well. He went out on the town, shaved his head, pierced his ears, and bought a wild boar he named Alex Trebeck.

So, yeah.

I went on Jeopardy.

And I saw him.

Alex Trebeck.

In the…bark? Wood? Can’t say flesh…What would be a good substitute?

Oh, well.

So, Alex Trebeck came on over to me and creaked a smile at me. Creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. He must wear a lot of make up on tv, because trust me. Face to face, you can see the whorls and wood worm trails.

Sorry if that’s gonna give you nightmares. I just figured I’d share the horror and the misery and the three o’clock in the morning Alex Trebeck fueled insomnia.

“Hello. I am Alex Trebeck.” He clonked his teeth, which served to creep me out even more. “You are my new contestant.” He flung his head back and chortled like a deranged Bond villain. (I wonder if there should be a trademark sign after ‘deranged Bond villain’. Seems like there should be. Oh well. I don’t know how to do trademark thingadoos and oh my this is an insanely long parenthetical thought. I’d better stop now before it derails the whole story.) There we go.

So, yeah. He cackled and he chortled and he made my skin just…eeehw. Yes. My skin literally went…eeehw. I could demonstrate, but this is a non-visual medium. Sorry.

“I hope you will have lots of fun today, Mister Anderson.”

“wha?'” At this point, I was hoping for a big ‘It was all a dream” reveal. But no. The horror show that was Alex Trebeck played on.

“Yes. Mister Anderson, we will have so much fun on my game show. On my Jeopardy game show. Super deluxe Jeopardy game show.”

“Could you stop talking?”

He did, which was tremendously nice of him. He kept clonking his teeth, though. Not nice. So not nice. Twelve thousand million minions away from anything resembling nice.

He escorted me to the…uhh audience chamber? Game room? Guuhhh. Well. That room that you see on tv. People standing at podiums and all that rot.

“Okay. Mr. Anderson, we are going to cheat the system.” He threw his head back again and laughed and chortled and wheezed and made some other weird sounds.

As for me. Well. I was shocked. I mean, he didn’t even whisper it. He just blurted it out into his microphone in front of the paying audience.

And he just kept on laughing.

Then, he stopped and he looked at me as if he expected me to…I don’t even know. Agree to cheat? Disagree? Talk about myself? I had no clue.

“So. My name is Peter Anderson and I like—-”

“Mister Anderson, we are going to cheat the system and we will both make lots and lots of moolah!”

Moolah.

Moolah.

Huh. Interesting. I never thought Alex Trebeck was the type to use the word moolah. But what do I know? I thought all along that he was made out of Plaster of Paris.

“Do you want to cheat the system and make a lot of moolah, Mister Anderson?”

“AAIIIEEEE!” I landed in a prison cell. Or maybe it was a cage. Wait. Are prison cells really just elaborate cages?

Alex Trebeck looked down at me. “Oh, I am so sorry, Mister Anderson.” He clonked his teeth at me. “I do hope that you will reconsider.”

And he slid the trap door shut.

Leaving me in the dark.

Huh. Interesting. I’ve watched Jeopardy for, I don’t know, all my life. I’m pretty sure I watched it as a newborn. I have fuzzy, unfocused memories about that. I just…I had no idea he had this kind of set-up. I really didn’t.